Seconds to Midnight

January 2, 2017
of Donlay’s disappointing seventh Donovan Nash novel (after 2016’s Pegasus Down), Donovan and his four-person crew, who are flying over northern Manitoba on a research mission in a Gulfstream jet, narrowly avoid colliding with a Boeing 737. The 737, evidently in distress, lands on a frozen lake; a lone woman escapes the aircraft before it breaks the ice and sinks. Donovan and crew land on the lake in their smaller plane and succeed in rescuing the woman, who cries before collapsing: “Don’t let anyone know about me. They’ll kill us all, even our families.” Donovan and his wife, Lauren, a Defense Intelligence Agency operative, join forces with various others to solve the mystery of the doomed 737—and the unidentified woman, who’s later abducted from a Minneapolis hospital while still unconscious. Donovan and his team are in constant danger from unknown assailants, but the plot loses momentum amid long passages of unnecessary exposition. Agent: Kimberley Cameron, Kimberley Cameron Associates.

February 1, 2017
Part Stone Barrington, part Dirk Pitt (though a happily married version), Donovan Nash leads the scientific research organization Eco-Watch into another thrilling adventure (following Pegasus Down, 2016). While flying over northern Canada to gather information about solar flares, Nash and his team see a Boeing 737 attempt to make an emergency landing. They then rescue the crash's lonesurvivor from the icy waters. In and out of consciousness, the woman whispers to Nash, Don't let them know I'm alivethey'll kill everyone. Never one to shy away from a challenge, Nash races to get to the bottom of the crash. Arms dealers, spies, sex traffickers, and Russian nationalists are all somehow tied to this woman, to what happened on that plane, and to the fate of the world as we know it. A fast, splashy adventure with tons of gadgets, fake IDs, and last-minute, life-saving bolts through the doors of the American embassy.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)